Donna Hatch is the author of the best-selling “Rogue Hearts
Series,” and a winner of writing awards such as The Golden Quill and the
International Digital Award. A hopeless romantic and adventurer at heart, she
discovered her writing passion at the tender age of 8 and has been listening to
those voices ever since. She has become a sought-after workshop presenter, and
also juggles freelance editing, multiple volunteer positions, and most of all,
her six children (seven, counting her husband). A native of Arizona who
recently transplanted to the Pacific Northwest, she and her husband of over
twenty years are living proof that there really is a happily ever after.

Holly’s two Christmas wishes
this year are to finally win her mother’s approval by gaining the notice of a
handsome earl, and discovering the identity of the stranger who gave her a
heart-shattering kiss…even if that mystery kisser is the resident Christmas
ghost.

Snippet:

This snippet comes from the first time Holly
confides to someone about her mystery kiss. She chooses for her confident the
resident vicar, who, in her opinion, is too handsome by half.

“….I cannot
imagine anyone else in the household would have done it.”

“Hmmm. That
is a mystery.”

“My only
other thought is …well, it’s hard to even consider.”

“What is
it?”

“You might
laugh. Or perform that exorcism in truth.”

He tiltedhis head, his eyes wide. She’d never noticed what a beautiful shade of blue they were, like a clear winter sky.

“Exorcism?”
he asked. “Do you think a ghost might
have done this?”

She let out
a helpless half-laugh. “Either that, or a servant, which seems preposterous.”

He sat back
as if pondering, then resumed his task. “That is something to consider. I agree
you are right about Lord Bradbury. I do not know him well, but he strikes me as
too honorable to engage in that type of behavior.”

“That is my
opinion as well.”

They
resumed their bough making and bow-tying in silence. She could not guess his
thoughts, but hers returned to that night in the conservatory, the sublime
beauty of that particular intimacy.

The vicar’s
voice broke into her thoughts. “I believe you may be right.”

“I’mright?” She blinked.

“It might
have been a ghost.”

She almost
dropped her ribbon. “Do you truly believe that?”

“Let’s
consider all the other possibilities.”

Working
side by side, they discussed each male guest, and every servant that they had
seen or met in the castle. The vicar, having spent so much time at this castle
over the years in his friendship with Joseph, knew all of them. They went back
over what few physical attributes she had detected about her mystery man, and compared
them to each male in the household. One by one, they eliminated them all.

Finally, the vicar said, “It is possible that your mystery man mistook you for someoneelse.”

She winced.
“That would be truly terrible. How humiliating.”

He said
nothing for a long moment while they worked. Quietly, he asked, “Can you think
of anyone we have not yet considered?”

She worked
at her bow, trying to get the loops the same size. “No, I can’t.”

A weighted
pause. “Then the only other explanation is that some stranger entered the
castle.”

She
shivered. That thought frightened her more than the others.

While Holly
grappled with the prospect, the vicar said what they were both thinking,
“Either it was someone else we have not considered, or it was a ghost.”

A ghost.

That would explain why the sensation had been so…unearthly.

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